The Central Intelligence Agency showed its hipper side Friday, launching its Twitter presence with a cheeky first tweet: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.”

The CIA was slow to join Twitter. Other agencies like the geeky codebreakers at the National Security Agency and even the staid Director of National Intelligence had already joined Twitter. NSA had a creative tweet go viral last month, when @NSACareers tweeted a series of letters – with a challenge to break the code. @NSACareers is a veteran tweeter, having launched the first U.S. spy agency Twitter account in 2009.

Coming fashionably late to Twitter, CIA quickly made up for lost ground. Within the first hour of its account’s inception at 1:45 p.m., CIA had already gained almost 85,200 followers, their first tweet had been retweeted 70,000 times and “The CIA” was “trending,” in Twitter parlance.

The CIA had been planning to join Twitter for some time, but like all big bureaucracies, especially secret ones, decisions move slowly. “This has been a lengthy process,” said agency spokesman Dean Boyd. “It’s been in the works for a long time.”

Among the hurdles: CIA had to reclaim its handle from an individual who was impersonating the agency. The agency lodged a complaint earlier this year with Twitter to liberate the handle @CIA. “There was someone out there impersonating CIA via Twitter,” Mr. Boyd said. “CIA filed an impersonation complaint with Twitter and they secured the @CIA account for us, which is routine for government agencies.”

“We just deleted that one because it was kind of confusing,” said Jessica Moore, the institute’s web manager. “Some people would mention us in their tweets and they were clearly thinking they were talking with the ‘real CIA,’ the Central Intelligence Agency.” In an era in which spy agencies are uneasily embracing a mandate for more transparency, the CIA’s Twitter account, which was launched alongside a Facebook account, will be another platform for CIA to reach out to the public. It will be run by the agency’s public affairs office.

“By expanding to these platforms, CIA will be able to more directly engage with the public and provide information on CIA’s mission, history, and other developments,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a statement. “We have important insights to share, and we want to make sure that unclassified information about the agency is more accessible to the American public that we serve, consistent with our national security mission.”

Many other U.S. spy agencies have Twitter accounts, which tend to be similar to press releases, just in 140 characters or with photos. The CIA’s humorous first tweet sets a high bar for @CIA, and tickled the funny bone of other spy agencies, like the National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency, @NGA_GEOINT, which responded: “Welcome to Twitter! Can’t wait to work with you on [REDACTED] :-)”

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